May 27, 2003

Get the picture

United Press International is offering a searchable archive of around 100,000 images of newsmakers and news events. The archive is growing by about 1,200 images a month. You can search by keyword or name and limit by date. See it at http://www.upi.com/photos/. You need an account to be able to see full size pictures.

Today's fun story

Mobile phone ring tones are pretty annoying at the best of times. Now a whole new raft of noises - sounding suspiciously like someone blowing a raspberry - are set to assault our ears, according to Wired News. The story, about new 'whoopie cushion' phone rings, is at http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,58990,00.html/wn_ascii. Sounds like a barrel of laughs.

Media ownership in the US

Wired News has a simple Q&A today to help people understand the US Federal Communications Commission's proposals to change media ownership laws in the US. The story reads: "Current rules ban mergers between major television networks -- NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox -- and limit the number of television and radio stations that a company can own in a market. The rules prohibit any company from owning television stations that reach more than 35 percent of U.S. households, or owning a newspaper and a radio or television station in the same city." Read the full piece at http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,58993,00.html/wn_ascii.

Ethical questions - who's got answers?

Poynter's Ethics Journal has an interesting piece today called 10 questions and no answers. In light of the Jayson Blair scandal at the New York Times, Kelly McBride poses some useful questions about plagiarising and interview techniques that are relevant to anyone working in news. She asks: "Is it OK for radio disk jockeys to read the morning newspaper on the air if they don't attribute it? Is there a difference between plagiarizing your own clips and relying on the same phrases and descriptions over and over? When doing man-on-the-street stuff, should you ask for phone numbers? Addresses? How do you verify you really did the interview?"and so on. Read the full piece at http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=53&aid=35006. And if anyone would like to comment on these or related issues, please feel free to leave a comment here.

May 23, 2003

Online magazine for photojournalists

The Digital Journalist dubs itself a multimedia magazine for photojournalism in the digital age. It appears monthly (http://www.digitaljournalist.org/). Use the Contents Pages to navigate the site and see articles and features. The latest issue has a lot of Iraq war stories but also has articles and features such as Why will wireless camera phones revolutionize the photography industry?.

The database is part of the Well Connected project by the Center, a three-year investigation into the United States telecommunications industry, where the three largest local phone companies control 83% of home telephone lines.

May 22, 2003

Moral panics about immigration

After Four Corners' Woomera report this week, many people must be wondering exactly why refugees, immigration and asylum seekers have become such incendiary issues. In a paper, Challenges to Sovereignty : Migration laws for the 21st century, presented at the 13th Commonwealth Law Conference in Melbourne, Catherine Dauvergne looks at the causes of the ‘moral panic’ around these issues. She states: "I begin this story by explaining the relationship between national sovereignty and migration laws over their reasonably brief history. I then talk about three intersecting phenomena which are emblematic of the relationship between migration law and sovereignty at this point in time: refugee law, illegal migration, and the pursuit of the best and the brightest. Finally, I finish by speculating about how the challenges to sovereignty presented by these phenomena lead to particular types of migration law responses." The introductory section is at http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/items/00302.shtml, with a link to the full paper (in Word format) at http://www.sisr.net/apo/Challengesfinal.doc.

The rich get handouts

It's barely news that the rich are getting richer, but journalists owe it to their readers to make a noise when well-off people get tax breaks and concessions that those lower down the income scale need more but can't get. The Australian Council of Social Service claims John Howard's government is supplying "well-off welfare" worth $7.2 billion to the top 20-25% of taxpayers. The decisions that delivered this windfall include the private health insurance rebate, the 'baby bonus' and tolerance of tax avoidance through private companies and family trusts. Read the full report (it's in Word, so save and virus-scan it first) at http://coss.net.au/news/upload/info345_waste_analysis_final.doc.

May 21, 2003

Scientists speak, public misunderstand?

When scientists speak, do the public always hear the right message? Good question - and one tackled by the UK's Economic & Social Research Council in a new 64-page report entitled Towards a better map: Science, the public and the media. The report is at
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/esrccontent/DownloadDocs/Mapdocfinal.pdf . The report examines public misconceptions about three key science stories recently hot in the UK media - on climate change, genetics and the safety of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. There is an associated press release, Public Duped By Media Over MMR, at
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/esrccontent/news/may03-8.asp.

May 20, 2003

Interactive TV, anyone?

If you have been wondering about the future of digital television and interactive services, you might want to look for clues within the 40-page White Paper, Future Opportunities for UK Telephony and interactive Services, produced by BT agilemedia, an arm of BT, (the UK equivalent to Telstra). You can get the full report at http://www.agile-media.co.uk/mc_downloads.htm. The report covers what interactive business opportunities companies can exploit in fixed and mobile telephony, as well as online.

Everyone's a journo

Becoming a journalist in South Korea is easier than blogging. Just sign up at OhmyNews, (http://www.ohmynews.com/) and you can contribute to a collaborative online news service. Wired News has the full story at http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,58856,00.html/wn_ascii. The story includes this quote from Oh Yeon-ho, OhmyNews's editor: "With OhmyNews, we wanted to say goodbye to 20th-century journalism where people only saw things through the eyes of the mainstream, conservative media. Our main concept is every citizen can be a reporter. We put everything out there and people judge the truth for themselves."

May 16, 2003

Comparing countries

Bill D. has alerted me to another useful site today called NationMaster (http://www.nationmaster.com/). The site uses data drawn from the CIA World Factbook 2002 and you can use the data interactively to create comparisons on a range of criteria. The displays are not as attractive as those on the ill-fated your-nation (http://www.your-nation.com/) but your-nation is no longer being updated (their data is from 1998) so this will have to be the substitute. Anyone wanting the CIA World Factbook directly can see it at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/.

All the way with the USA?

Australia’s alliance with America is examined in a new paper from the Asialink Centre at the University of Melbourne. The paper asks these questions:
What are the benefits and costs to Australia’s defence interests in the contemporary era of the alliance, which is now over 50 years old?And what are the implications for Australia’s foreign policy relationships in Asia? Read the full paper at http://www.asialink.unimelb.edu.au/cpp/policypapers/pauldibb.pdf.

May 15, 2003

Google's Aussie news?

Google News has launched an Australian news section. This should provide a portal to Australian news publishing from a range of sources so it's a bit of a hoot that today's top story is from the UK Guardian and not from an Australian source at all. Lots of other foreign news sources appear too - the NYT, the FT and so on. Maybe it's the Aussie news providers' fault? After all, some Australian newspapers try to lock down so much of their online news that this kind of service can't even see it, much less list it. Can that be wise for the future of online news? After all, a service such as this might drive more traffic their way, and if people don't see an organisation's news up on Google News Australia, they might bypass those sources altogether and go where they can get a freely available story. This is one of a number of country-specific news portals released by Google recently. See it at http://news.google.com.au/ and thanks to Bill D. for the tip.

The G-G and Freudian slips

Australian Policy Online has posted an opinion by the Gilbert+Tobin Centre of Public Law, University of New South Wales, that the only safe course for Peter Hollingworth is to resign the Governor-Generalship. In a delightful typo, the introduction states: "Dr Hollingworth should resign, but reforms to the officer [my italics] are needed before he is replaced, according to George Williams". Reforms to the officer, indeed - presumably Hollingworth's detractors believe such reforms are long overdue. The piece is at http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/items/00295.shtml.

Cities boom

If you live in Bombay or Dhaka, get used to overcrowding now because things are only going to get worse. People who live in Osaka or London - feel free to stretch - growth in your cities is slowing down. Wired Newshas this story, The Geography of Change, which claims that by the end of this century, 50% of people will live in cities (it was 10% at the start of the 20th century). By far, the greatest city growth will be ouside the developed world. Read the full story and see the visuals at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/atlas_spc.html.

May 14, 2003

It involves reading but ...

... if you're interested in the Middle East and what will happen post-Iraq War, then ebrary's collection of around 100 free online books on the topic may have some useful information and background. Find the collection at http://middle-east.ebrary.com/. Titles include Neighbors, Not Friends : Iraq & Iran after the Gulf Wars, The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror, and Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle Eastern Policy. Note: The 'freeness' of the material relates to online reading only - printing or saving any of the texts costs a small fee per page. Also you will need to download the ebrary reader software - this only took a minute or so to download and install and works very well.

Education and the Budget

The Department of Education, Science and Training has a Budget at a glance document for anyone writing education-related stories about last night's budget. It's at http://www.dest.gov.au/at_a_glance.htm. There are separate sections for

May 12, 2003

Timelines

Whether you call them chronologies or timelines, lists or tables of what happened when are handy for journalists. One of the biggest is Timelines of History (http://timelines.ws/), which has this day in history information as well as a whole raft of odd bits of historical, country and other information. Also worth a look is CNN (http://cnn.com/). It doesn't link to timelines per se but you can generally get a timeline if you combine that term with your normal search. For example, the search "Bosnia timeline" brought up four entries, two of which were gold - Timeline: The Milosevic years and Timeline: Interventions in the Balkans. Combine timeline with just about any other term and see what you get.

May 08, 2003

Salam Pax is back

Go here FIRST?

Need a chronology? Want information on arms sales or peacekeeping missions? Have a look at FIRST (Facts on International Relations and Security Trends), a free-of-charge database service (a joint project of the International Relations and Security Network and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). The site consists of a number of integrated databases of information from research institutes around the world. It covers international relations and security, such as facts 'on armed conflicts and peace keeping, arms production and trade, military expenditure, armed forces and conventional weapons holding, nuclear weapons, chronology, statistics and other reference data'. Check it out at http://first.sipri.org/.

Outlets for political steam in the UK

In a bid to find out what the punters are thinking, and to help them engage with issues politically, the BBC plans to launch iCan, a site "designed to help citizens investigate issues that concern them, find others who share those concerns and provide advice and tools for organizing and engaging in the political
process," according to Wired News. The story is at http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,58715,00.html.
The BBC introduced the iCan concept at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in Santa Clara, California (http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2003/view/e_sess/3711). The BBC plans to assign journalists to monitor the online community for potential news stories.

May 07, 2003

Press freedom report from RSF

Reporters sans Frontieres (Reporters without Borders) has just published an annual report, Freedom of the Press throughout the World, 2003. The opening title reads 'The "New World Order"... of repression". Access to the full text is by zone, e.g. Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Where is Australia, you might ask? Lobbed in with Asia, along with all the countries of the Pacific. That probably wouldn't go down well in Canberra ... See for yourself at http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=330.

Dictionary definitions

I've got one at home and use it all the time but, till now, I was unaware that you could search the Collins Dictionary online. The company is definitely hiding its light under a bushel on this one, with the dictionary housed at what looks like a generic all-purpose dictionary/translation site called WordReference (http://www.wordreference.com/). Only after you type in a word and get the results does the Collins logo appear. To make things even harder, the English Definition section, which is where you check spellings and definitions of words, is at the very bottom of a list of options, all of which are about translation. Once you type in a word, you get the phonetic pronounciation, the etymology and the meaning. This version is based on the 2000 print version of the Collins English Dictionary.

Customising the news

With many media organisations uncertain of the future of news online (all free? some free with premium content by subscription?), it is interesting to see the Miami Herald's take on the topic. Their new MyHerald.com service offers subscribers two options - a PDF of the paper so you can get an exact facsimile of the print version or a totally customisable 'Quickbrowse' version where you choose to load up the screen with stories that interest you. (You choose these from a list of every story in that day's paper.) Anyone who wants to check it out can sign up for a free, two-week trial at http://www.myherald.com/.

May 02, 2003

Home grown journals

Journals Australia, an initiative of the Australian Public Intellectual Network, showcases Australian journal publishing by providing an alphabetical list of publications. Information on each title available includes cover images, excerpts, tables of contents, guidelines for contributors, subscription information, links to journal Web sites, ordering instructions and contact details. See more at http://www.journals-australia.com/. Content is quite diverse - Australian Book Review, Eureka Street, Australasian Plant Pathology, Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia and Westerly.

May 01, 2003

The online business model for media

Steve Outing's latest Stop the Presses column is about successful business models for online news. He states: " For those news organizations that take the Internet seriously (and that's definitely not everyone, yet), news sites are a real business, bringing in substantial revenues ... U.S. newspaper Web sites generated $655 million in revenues in 2002 - or 40% of the $1.65 billion spent on local Internet advertising." That's a lot of dollars. Read the whole column at
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/features_columns/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1877517.